Newt Gingrich’s entire team of paid Iowa campaign staff, as well as his national spokesman and senior aides in New Hampshire and South Carolina, have resigned en masse, a staffer told The Des Moines Register.

“You have to be able to raise money to run a campaign and you have to invest time in fundraising and to campaign here in the state and I did not have the confidence that was going to be happening,” said Craig Schoenfeld, the Iowa executive director of Newt 2012.

“I’ve seen the schedule for June and July going into the straw poll. It’s clear there wasn’t a path to success,” he said.

The departures immediately raised questions about the future of Gingrich’s candidacy. The Georgia Republican, a former speaker of the U.S. House, announced via an online video on May 21 that he’s seeking the Republican nomination.

Shortly before 3 p.m. today, Gingrich posted this message on his Facebook page: “I am committed to running the substantive, solutions-oriented campaign I set out to run earlier this spring. The campaign begins anew Sunday in Los Angeles.”

Schoenfeld said several national aides resigned today, as well: Rick Tyler, spokesman; Rob Johnson, campaign manager; Sam Dawson, national consultant; and Schoenfeld’s counterparts in South Carolina and New Hampshire.

Will Rogers, Gingrich’s Iowa political director, resigned May 31.

Rogers told the Register today he meant to send a message to Gingrich.

Frustration with Gingrich’s lack of campaigning and fundraising built over time, but it was the candidate’s 10-day cruise around Greece that really upset him, Rogers said.

Rogers, who headed grassroots effort here, said dozens of Iowa GOP activists and business leaders were asking for Gingrich to make an appearance.

“I’d say, ‘Oh, great. Thanks for inviting us. We’ll get this sent up to the Washington, D.C. folks,'” Rogers said. “And then I’d send it to the D.C. folks and it would be radio silence. A few days later, you’d ask again and you’d ask again and you wouldn’t hear anything back. At first I thought it was the staff. And then I came to find out it was the candidate.”

Schoenfeld said over the last several days, the staffers had been speaking with Gingrich and senior aides in Washington, D.C. to explain their worries that the candidate wasn’t doing what was needed to win.

Gingrich hasn’t visited Iowa, home of the lead-off vote in the 2012 presidential nominating calendar, since May 21.

He has said he will return to Iowa over the Fourth of July weekend, for a patriotic event in Clear Lake.

“You need to invest more time than a parade appearance,” Schoenfeld said.

Organizers of a Strong America Now summit on national debt in Des Moines on June 18 told the Register this morning that Gingrich is on the schedule, but may appear only by remote video.

Schoenfeld said he and the other staff gave Gingrich a chance “to mull things over” before they quit, but “it’s a clear we were on two different paths.”

Iowa politics insiders said they will be watching Gingrich over the next few days to see if he drops out of the race completely.

But he has considerable assets – he’s considered extremely intelligent, is full of good ideas and has the ability to draw crowds in Iowa, several Republican politics watchers said.

Gingrich is signed up to participate in a debate Monday in New Hampshire. And that’s what caucusgoers and voters, who may not be interested in the inner workers of his campaign, will see, one Republican said.